Manchester United’s Phil Jones has warned that Real Madrid require “only a second” to punish his side at Old Trafford and insisted the Premier League leaders are not in the ascendancy after their 1-1 draw in the Spanish capital.

“We’re not really in the better position,” Jones said following last night’s round-of-16 first leg. “It’s another game. It’s a draw, so we start again at 0-0. We’ve got to go out and repeat this performance and stay solid.

“On a few occasions we let that slip and they can punish you. It only takes a second for them. You know they are going to create something in the game. They will do that to any team.”

The looks on the faces of the United players as they processed through the media mixed zone last night revealed that Jones is right and they know they should have capitalised on some unanticipated weaknesses from Jose Mourinho’s side.

United’s principal crime was paying their opponents far too much respect after a build-up dominated by talk of the “bullying” presence of Cristiano Ronaldo. When they unexpectedly found Mourinho’s side sitting off them, allowing them yards of space to operate within, United failed to capitalise. It was in his half-time team talk that Ferguson told them to “have more belief”.

It now only requires one goal from the galaxy of Real’s attacking options to negate United’s away advantage and Ferguson’s players will find it harder not to concede one in Manchester — where their own natural tendency to play expansively, and the Old Trafford faithful’s expectations of nothing less, will suit Mourinho’s team.

Mourinho subtly turned the psychological screw post-match last night by hinting at a United negativity.

Ferguson bit on the bait, declaring that “of course” his side had tried to win here and that “we will obviously be more positive in terms of team selection playing at home”.

That will be music to the ears of Ronaldo, Angel di Maria and Mesut Ozil, who was Mourinho’s most dangerous attacking threat against the Premier League leaders. The bookmakers make United only slight favourites to win the tie after the first leg, even though the odds of them lifting the Champions League have shortened from 11-1 to 9-1, and it is unlikely we will see a repeat of last night’s staunch rearguard effort, in which Jones and Michael Carrick were operating as de facto centre-backs for much of the time.

It was the performance of 22-year-old David de Gea, once of Atletico Madrid, which was most impressive in the white heat of the Bernabeu.

Carrick, arguably the man of the match as he deterred Real, said the young goalkeeper was learning to take the criticism which goes with the Old Trafford turf.

“I think it’s never nice when people question you but it’s the nature of a club like this,” Carrick said. “You are always getting questioned and criticised and that’s just how it is and you’ve got to deal with it. He deals with it and that’s fine. He’s a top keeper and he’s only going to get better.

“To be at such a young age at this club and have so much on your shoulders shows just what a player he is. Coming back home to Madrid as well puts a bit of extra spotlight on him. [It’s difficult] to come here, to a place like this, where there’s no bigger pressure than this stage of the Champions League. He kept us in the game at times.”

Ferguson confirmed that Nemanja Vidic had been left out of the squad because he plays one game every eight or nine days and still has to manage his comeback from knee surgery, though Jonny Evans can actually lay claim to be a more reliable option, with greater pace, this season.

It is Mourinho who must worry about the aerial ball, though, after Sergio Ramos failed even to jump for the Rooney corner which Danny Welbeck deposited for his first United goal in four months.

“We train, we practise and we say who should be doing what and we watch the videos of the opponent to see their strengths from set-pieces,” Mourinho said. “But when there are individual errors then there is nothing you can do. If United score first [at Old Trafford] we have to score to level. But if we score first we will go through with that goal.”